The Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (MESDA) has opened registration for their fall seminar: "Southern Accents: Slabs, Safes, Seats, and Color"
SAPFM is not affiliated with this seminar, but many of our members are deeply involved with MESDA and the seminar is of interest to all of our members...so we wanted to be sure everyone had awareness and a chance to register.
The MESDA Furniture Seminar is a biennial forum for collectors, curators, woodworkers, and conservators to explore a variety of topics related to the serious study of antique furniture. The program is known for its intimate size that allows speakers and attendees the change to interact with each other and the MESDA and Old Salem collections. From Virginia pie safes to Alabama slabs, the 2024 program will explore the various ways southern regional identity manifests in furniture styles and making.
Special themed pre-conference experiences will include a behind-the-scenes tour of MESDA’s paint decorated furniture collection with Lea Lane, Curator of the MESDA Collection. Sally Gant, Former Educational Director at MESDA, will also deliver a pre-conference workshop on “the Guilford Limner,” a still-anonymous 19th century painter whose portraits of Kentuckians and Carolinians also include detailed depictions of regional furniture and interiors.
Featured speakers include Keynote Speaker Roy Underhill of PBS’s the Woodwright Shop, and demonstrations of Shenandoah Valley paint decoration techniques by Dr. Angela Caban of the American College of the Building Arts and Chet Tomlinson of Old Salem who will demonstrate the processes behind a distinctive Kentucky chair group.
In addition to two days of lectures and demonstrations, attendees will also have the opportunity to examine MESDA’s furniture collection up close during an open house in the MESDA study rooms. Click on this link to learn more and to register.